Approaching Winter

It’s a typical pre-winter day here at the Chicken Ranch. I hold the curtain back and peer out the north window. The sky is a water color mix of gray, lavender and pastel blues. The lighter portion of sky orients me to the east where the sun hides behind the gloomy veil. Here and there a small faded-cotton cloud ambles slowly to the south. Someday those pillows of moisture will choose to stay and paint the earth a powdery white.

The leaves fall like wedding rice as the breeze urges them lose from the now scantily clad branches. A shower of foliage, and then a trickle, and then a burst again. They fall at a dizzy angle and then blow into a cluster against the Forsythia hedge. There, some will stay huddled through the frigid months until my rake removes them in the spring. Others will be chosen to ride the wind into the fields where the plow or disc will add them to furrowed soil.

Only the Willow tree seems to discount the inevitable. It clings to its pen knife size leaves that remain green, though a paler shade with a piping of yellow around the edges. It’s pessimistic branches hang to the ground. It’s trunk bent, bowed and submitted it lives up to it’s weeping reputation. A red squirrel digs under it, places a package in the dirt, pats it down and then hops and jumps to the white mottled trunk of the Sycamore tree nearby.

Some say squirrels don’t hide food for the winter. They just do it for entertainment. I think squirrels are smarter than that. Like me I think, this fiery tailed creature feels the wind of change on his skin. He and I are just preparing to make the best of what’s sure to come.